And the other problem people forgot with the last recession... Many people were underwater in regards to there homes so they would have to take a significant loss to move.
And people forget that stores only tend to carry the "popular" items.
For example, wife and I buy unlocked smart phones so we are not locked to a single carrier. We have bought our phones from Newegg and Amazon and gotten our cases from there too - we didn't necessarily want whatever Apple/Samsung/LG and the carriers were pushing.
I have gotten scolded (eventually laid off) for doing that sort of thing at my old job - "I don't have the budget for you to be doing that sort of scripting on these projects." Boss would rather have done crap by hand.
At my job before that, I did that sort of thing but there was limited funds/advancement so that's why I left to go to the aforementioned job that promised to let me go do my own thing.
You answered the question yourself as to why people don't stay.
If I stay at company X and only to get a 3% year over year increase, and you can get 10% by jumping ship.... most people will jump ship....
Companies complain about loyalty but then do nothing to foster it.
You forgot one other thing.... If there were such a shortage, you'd see companies investing more in training - i.e. like people with backgrounds in related fields that had an interest in coding.
People tend to forget, CS is a relatively new degree at many universities. My parents went to 2 different universities (one large, one small, two different states, etc.) in the late '60's and early '70's. Programming courses were just starting to be offered, usually in the Math department, but other departments in Science and Engineering offered them as well. The uni's rented time on computers elsewhere or just got their first machine. Both my parents had math degrees and went on to become professional programmers and nothing melted down/blew up and they didn't have all the niceties that we are use too today. Point is, if there was a real shortage, companies would be looking for smart people they could train up as well.
Sure, people may have more choices today that they didn't have decades ago. But companies are willing to do less to keep people around than they did decades ago.
I've heard/commented before around the 'net - is it any coincidence that with the death of the pension, that any type of employee loyalty died along with it?
I think you're right - people also have their own network locally and with all the layoffs and what no that happen frequently, why move unless it is the last resort.
I also think the last recession made it harder for people to move because they may have been under water on their mortgages. Property values in general feel, so unless you were in dire straights why wouldn't you just try to ride things out rather than sell at a loss?
I agree with this, I'd like to see the job posting, salary/benefits, location and the hiring process/interview questions. My hunch is that there is a mismatch between job expectations/salary and what actually exists in reality.
> or have a very peculiar definition of "qualified."
I'd argue that half the problem is that some employers get the idea that they need to interview developers like Google or Amazon for roles that may not need that level of detail. In other words, if you're just updating business rules in a CRUD based web app using any of the standard libraries, I don't know if asking candidates to code a binary tree on a whiteboard is the best test of whether or not someone would be able to do the job effectively. Even Google admits that they have a high "false positive" rate (people that fail their interview but would be successful in the job anyways), but when you receive millions of applications a year, I suppose you can afford to be picky.
I would also like to point out that when many companies got their first computers in the 50's, 60's or 70's, there was no such thing as a "computer science" degree. Programming courses were generally offered under math, science or engineering departments. Companies hired people without the formal computer science education we think of today, and things didn't melt down, and they didn't have the benefits of all the different frameworks, languages, etc. that we have today.
I would contend that there is a shortage, but it is mostly for senior level people who may have some niche experience, which is true of almost any field. But for your run of the mill jobs, you don't necessarily need this. Most people, by definition, are average.
Oh, and companies don't get a free pass, either. Many of them what a top 1% coder for bottom 50% wages if at all possible.
Lastly, if there was such a shortage, we'd see companies hiring people that didn't have their "required" experience, but had a couple operational brain cells that could be coached up. I saw this during the dot-com boom.
But, I'd assume that Google wanted her on the mapping side. She had graduate work in geosciences or whatever; and can at least program. I could see how she could compliment someone on the CS side.
No, it's definitely illegal/against the rules to deliberately pay an H1-B worker less than a native worker in the same position. That doesn't stop anyone from doing it. The program depends on the visa holders to report any wrongdoing; however, I think we all know what would happen should they complain. H1-Bs are considered even more disposable than your average worker, and have a fixed amount of time after being terminated to obtain new employment or face deportation. They keep their mouths shut, and keep getting paid less.
I've read that the suggestion that companies give a laundry list of requirements and experience needed for the job and list it as a "Junior" level position or call it a different type of position all together. Then of course they can't find a local especially at the wages offered.
Think about it, why else would a company employ an H1-B? They will scream and cry about a shortage of native workers to fill open positions, but they're full of shit. There are more than enough native workers to fill the positions; there just aren't enough native workers available at the salaries they want to pay. So, in a sense, they're not lying about a shortage, but it's a shortage of their own creation. That, and frequently a company will identify an H1-B they want to hire and write a job description so specific to their skill set that they can claim there aren't any qualified native workers. Which is true; nobody has the exact same skill set as someone else.
If there were such a shortage as people claim....
Wages would go up, especially faster than inflation, which I don't think has happened over the last 15 years, based off of some data I saw.
We already graduate more people with a STEM degree than vacancies every year, and that doesn't include people with a STEM degree working outside of STEM[1]
While that is true, I would say the counter to that is that people in the western world have a bit more to loose than someone coming from a 2nd or 3rd world country.
I think the root of the issue is that said company is not willing to invest in their workers - Either by hiring them and training them or giving a more senior person a decent salary. Both types of workers would want raises as well.
I am all for putting a ton of strings on the granting of H1B's. If it's really needed for a position, a company should be paying well above market rates and be able to prove that they exhausted every avenue state side.
If a country wants a piece of the action, maybe they should take a good hard look at their tax code. They may have to lower taxes *gasp* Perhaps getting 17% of something is better than getting 30% of $0.
The reason companies do this is because it's more profitable to hire an army of lawyers and accountants to skirt local laws.
It may "create" jobs - just not the ones we want. I can envision that it would create lower paying service jobs in the short term.
I think the intention of the H1B system was to bring the "best" people over to the US. Their "ideas" would create jobs, but I don't think that has panned out over the long term.
Slashdot Mirror
I started using AIM in 1998, around the time I graduated from high school.
I did a study abroad while in college. It was the most cost effective way to have a semi real time chat with friends/family back here in the States.
And the other problem people forgot with the last recession... Many people were underwater in regards to there homes so they would have to take a significant loss to move.
And people forget that stores only tend to carry the "popular" items.
For example, wife and I buy unlocked smart phones so we are not locked to a single carrier. We have bought our phones from Newegg and Amazon and gotten our cases from there too - we didn't necessarily want whatever Apple/Samsung/LG and the carriers were pushing.
You've been lucky then.
I have gotten scolded (eventually laid off) for doing that sort of thing at my old job - "I don't have the budget for you to be doing that sort of scripting on these projects." Boss would rather have done crap by hand.
At my job before that, I did that sort of thing but there was limited funds/advancement so that's why I left to go to the aforementioned job that promised to let me go do my own thing.
Well, didn't the communist party endorse Hillary and Obama?
This seems ass backwards. Why not be allowed to write off both?
You answered the question yourself as to why people don't stay. If I stay at company X and only to get a 3% year over year increase, and you can get 10% by jumping ship.... most people will jump ship.... Companies complain about loyalty but then do nothing to foster it.
You forgot one other thing.... If there were such a shortage, you'd see companies investing more in training - i.e. like people with backgrounds in related fields that had an interest in coding.
People tend to forget, CS is a relatively new degree at many universities. My parents went to 2 different universities (one large, one small, two different states, etc.) in the late '60's and early '70's. Programming courses were just starting to be offered, usually in the Math department, but other departments in Science and Engineering offered them as well. The uni's rented time on computers elsewhere or just got their first machine. Both my parents had math degrees and went on to become professional programmers and nothing melted down/blew up and they didn't have all the niceties that we are use too today. Point is, if there was a real shortage, companies would be looking for smart people they could train up as well.
Sure, people may have more choices today that they didn't have decades ago. But companies are willing to do less to keep people around than they did decades ago.
I've heard/commented before around the 'net - is it any coincidence that with the death of the pension, that any type of employee loyalty died along with it?
I think you're right - people also have their own network locally and with all the layoffs and what no that happen frequently, why move unless it is the last resort.
I also think the last recession made it harder for people to move because they may have been under water on their mortgages. Property values in general feel, so unless you were in dire straights why wouldn't you just try to ride things out rather than sell at a loss?
I agree with this, I'd like to see the job posting, salary/benefits, location and the hiring process/interview questions. My hunch is that there is a mismatch between job expectations/salary and what actually exists in reality.
I'd argue that half the problem is that some employers get the idea that they need to interview developers like Google or Amazon for roles that may not need that level of detail. In other words, if you're just updating business rules in a CRUD based web app using any of the standard libraries, I don't know if asking candidates to code a binary tree on a whiteboard is the best test of whether or not someone would be able to do the job effectively. Even Google admits that they have a high "false positive" rate (people that fail their interview but would be successful in the job anyways), but when you receive millions of applications a year, I suppose you can afford to be picky.
I would also like to point out that when many companies got their first computers in the 50's, 60's or 70's, there was no such thing as a "computer science" degree. Programming courses were generally offered under math, science or engineering departments. Companies hired people without the formal computer science education we think of today, and things didn't melt down, and they didn't have the benefits of all the different frameworks, languages, etc. that we have today.
People like myself are gaming inside a VM with pretty good luck.
I would contend that there is a shortage, but it is mostly for senior level people who may have some niche experience, which is true of almost any field. But for your run of the mill jobs, you don't necessarily need this. Most people, by definition, are average.
Oh, and companies don't get a free pass, either. Many of them what a top 1% coder for bottom 50% wages if at all possible.
Lastly, if there was such a shortage, we'd see companies hiring people that didn't have their "required" experience, but had a couple operational brain cells that could be coached up. I saw this during the dot-com boom.
But, I'd assume that Google wanted her on the mapping side. She had graduate work in geosciences or whatever; and can at least program. I could see how she could compliment someone on the CS side.
I've been thinking about getting an 8350...
No, it's definitely illegal/against the rules to deliberately pay an H1-B worker less than a native worker in the same position. That doesn't stop anyone from doing it. The program depends on the visa holders to report any wrongdoing; however, I think we all know what would happen should they complain. H1-Bs are considered even more disposable than your average worker, and have a fixed amount of time after being terminated to obtain new employment or face deportation. They keep their mouths shut, and keep getting paid less.
I've read that the suggestion that companies give a laundry list of requirements and experience needed for the job and list it as a "Junior" level position or call it a different type of position all together. Then of course they can't find a local especially at the wages offered.
Think about it, why else would a company employ an H1-B? They will scream and cry about a shortage of native workers to fill open positions, but they're full of shit. There are more than enough native workers to fill the positions; there just aren't enough native workers available at the salaries they want to pay. So, in a sense, they're not lying about a shortage, but it's a shortage of their own creation. That, and frequently a company will identify an H1-B they want to hire and write a job description so specific to their skill set that they can claim there aren't any qualified native workers. Which is true; nobody has the exact same skill set as someone else.
If there were such a shortage as people claim....
[1]http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth
Recruiters can ask all they want. You don't have to answer it.
Run their own email server.
with 4.9.2!
While that is true, I would say the counter to that is that people in the western world have a bit more to loose than someone coming from a 2nd or 3rd world country.
I think the root of the issue is that said company is not willing to invest in their workers - Either by hiring them and training them or giving a more senior person a decent salary. Both types of workers would want raises as well.
I am all for putting a ton of strings on the granting of H1B's. If it's really needed for a position, a company should be paying well above market rates and be able to prove that they exhausted every avenue state side.
Unfortunately, I would agree.
If a country wants a piece of the action, maybe they should take a good hard look at their tax code. They may have to lower taxes *gasp* Perhaps getting 17% of something is better than getting 30% of $0.
The reason companies do this is because it's more profitable to hire an army of lawyers and accountants to skirt local laws.
It may "create" jobs - just not the ones we want. I can envision that it would create lower paying service jobs in the short term.
I think the intention of the H1B system was to bring the "best" people over to the US. Their "ideas" would create jobs, but I don't think that has panned out over the long term.